Rapid developments in communication technology, driven by strong market demand, have led to sophisticated voice conferencing systems and presence systems. Voice conferencing systems establish, maintain, and terminate voice conferences between multiple conferees. Presence systems track and report whether an individual is on the phone, at their desk, in a meeting, or has another predefined presence state.
In the past, voice conferencing systems and presence systems operated relatively independently. Voice conference participants could determine which potential conferees had actually joined the voice conference by checking a voice conference application, such as a voice conference workgroup portal. However, the voice conference participants had to manually check a different application, such as a personal portal, to determine the presence state of any of their contacts.
When potential conferees were absent from the voice conference, the participating conferees could manually check the presence status of the potential conferees. Manually checking presence status was distracting, unproductive, and time consuming. Moreover, the success of a voice conference often depends on the ability of conferees to communicate their ideas, understand the substantive content of the voice conference, and contribute to the discussion. Accordingly, the success of the voice conference could be compromised not only by the absence of expected participants, but also by the distracting manual investigation into the presence status of the potential conferees.
A need has long existed for enhanced voice conferencing.